Numbers in

About Numbers

Numbers and numeric operators

All numbers, whether integers or otherwise, are IEEE754 double precision floating point numbers. The implementation of jq uses the C double type. This limits us to 53 bits of precision.

The usual operators are available to use with numbers:

• arithmetic: +, -, *, /, %

• comparison: ==, !=, <, <=, >=, >

• standard math functions

  For one-input functions, pipe the value into the function

  $ jq -n '(1 | atan) * 4'
  3.141592653589793
  

  For two-input functions, the functions will ignore input and expect the inputs as parameters

  $ jq -n 'pow(2; 10)'
  1024
  

  Semi-colon is the separator for function arguments, not comma.

$ jq -n 'pow(2;52) as $n | [$n, $n+1]'
[
  4503599627370496,
  4503599627370497
]

$ jq -n 'pow(2;53) as $n | [$n, $n+1]'
[
  9007199254740992,
  9007199254740992
]

Conditional Expressions

jq uses an if-then-else expression for conditional expressions. As an expression, it is placed in a pipeline.

Then syntax is: if CONDTITION then TRUE_EXPR else FALSE_EXPR end. The else clause is optional in jq v1.7, but it is required in jq v1.6.

42 | if . < 33 then "small" else "larger" end
# => "larger"

Additional conditions use elif

42 | if . < 33 then "small"
     elif . < 67 then "medium"
     else "large"
     end
# => "medium"